Bridges in Film
10 am July 25th 2015 'Programmer: 'Will Welles '''Location: '''160 w. 118th apt 4N Films The first film of the marathon is widely regarded as one of the greatest portrayals of a bridge ever put to film. The location of the bridge scenes became a tourist attraction until the 1940s. AFI ranked the film as the 18th greatest film in history, but the intrepid viewer will note that it is only the second highest bridge film on their list. Join us on Sunday July 26th to watch Buster scramble all over that locomotive! Film One: THE GENERAL (1926) The next film in the marathon eschews the commonly held marathon belief that the second film should be 'quick' and 'easy' as people tend to hit a bagel slump after the first film. 'PAH!' we say, 'Pah' indeed. Good ol' Monty learned a lot about trying to be quick and easy back in September 1944! We'll be learning quite a lot about his blunders in the second longest film to ever be programmed in a Kent Marathon and the longest film since the second ever marathon 'From Capetown to Cairo,' a marathon that we here at Bridges in Film feel a certain affinity to. Forgive me for getting long winded -- We gather to watch film that critics called 'impressively staged, historically accurate, albeit long and repetitive.' But when the repetition is MORE bridges being battled on we can hardly blame them. Join me, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford and many more and dare to find the answer to the question: Can a bridge really be 'too' far?? Film Two: A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977) The third film in the marathon was introduced to me by the marathon's viewer Michael Lindsay. The film won best short awards at both the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards. The American television rights were purchased by the Twilight Zone. It was the only time they screened something that wasn't their own production. A Civil War story of a man about to be executed on a bridge for trying to sabotage a different bridge, we couldn't leave this out of the marathon. Without ruining anything, this film has action, adventure, romance, and features the song I want to be sung at my funeral. Film Three: AN OCCURENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE (1962) This film has something for everyone: It has sad men just trying to 'do a job' for Kate Phillips, we've got some Roy Scheiders for your Andrew Whalen, It has a heist gone wrong for Chris Rand, It has a Paris Stock Exchange fraud scandal for Tom Lewek, It has a Jerusalem scene for your Adam Polonski, It has Tangerine Dream's first ever film score for Alex Preiss and David Moroney, it's a film that ruined an A-list director's career for Winston Cook-Wilson, It's number 1 on Stephen King's list of 'top ten rentals that never let you down' list. Most importantly it has a bridge sequence that took over a month to shoot and cost nearly 12 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. This is a movie I've wanted to see for years, in fact this is the movie that inspired bridges in film. I wont say anymore but I will leave you with a poem by William Friedkin, the director himself, found on the back sleeve of the soundtrack: 'In the bottomless silence. Without warning A curtain slowly ascends revealing A midnight dawn. A whisper of chill wind And white sun eclipsed by pale yellow moon. Rumor of distant thunder trembles along the edge of a galaxy Cascading down infinite corridors of burning mirrors reflecting and rereflecting momentous oceans of stampeding wild horses.' FILM FOUR: SORCERER (1977) I first discovered the next film on a new distribution website for independent filmmakers called youtube.com. LifeaFunny's work on '13 Exploding a Bridge in 1 minute' really blew me away. At this point in the marathon we've seen filmmakers devote months of their lives and millions of dollars to a scene where a bridge explodes. LifeaFunny takes this concept to the 21st century. Forget characters, plots, stories, lets just get to what we've all beenwaiting for - bridges. FILM FIVE: 13 EXPLODING A BRIDGE IN 1 MINUTE (2013) Our six film is one who's name has been thrown around as people scrambled to understand the Bridges in Film lineup. A controversial choice to say the least. 'Too Obvious' was muttered to me by a grumpy Lord of Sealand on more than one occasion. 'Screen dark knight rises it has one bridge shot, screen bridges of madison county, screen rise of the planet of the apes it has a monkey bridge' These are all fine and dandy suggestions but when it comes down to it -- we cannot turn our backs on the films in which the entire plot revolves around a bridge, the films in which great effort was put into building and then destroying the bridge on camera, the films that nearly took the director's lives for the goal of heightening the art of the bridge based movie. So here it is, the one that was most expected but cannot be ignored. FILM SIX: BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) Next is something for all you hip Williamburg types... Have you ever looked around to discover there are bridges all around you? Come see the earliest proto-hipsters walk to Williamsburg in their highest fashions in FILM SEVEN: OPENING THE WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE (1904) Sadly, we have arrived at our final film. While I have the stamina of a canted spar cable-stayed bridge, many of you weak pontoon bridges might be getting warn out. Let me reinvigorate you with our final film. You may or may not know that our first film, The General, is based on the true story of Union soldiers stealing a confederate train during the Civil War. Interesting coincidence because our final film is based on the true story of Union soldiers stealing a confederate train during the Civil War. This one was made 30 years after the former by the fellows at Walt Disney Productions. A little bit of trivia, the train engine portraying The General in the film was built in 1856. Imagine using a 100 year old vehicle in your films, WOWZA! The film is also of note for being criticized for focusing on accurately portraying a historic event instead of entertaining the audience. 'Here Here!' We say! Accurate history is implicitly entertaining. Join us on our final crossing in FILM EIGHT: THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE (1956) Notes This was the first marathon to roll out the announcement of the films one by one instead of the previously used block announcement style.